Questions must now be asked about the members of the board of HP, which has made misstep after misstep. It backed Apotheker’s plans but when the share price plummeted, the gutless lot appear to have made the decision to oust Apotheker, even though it was the same lot who wooed him away from SAP to be the public face of HP.

Now the poor long suffering staff of HP will have to re-adjust to yet another CEO. Apotheker replaced Mark Hurd, who is now at Oracle.

Larry “Woodside” Ellison is quite probably chuckling unless he is on his yacht in a force 10 gale, that is. In which case he will be catching his breath.